Tuesday, May 09, 2017

Come see my new play!

THIS IS BOTH A BLOG POST AND BLOG EXPERIMENT. (Theatre Companies please read the whole thing.)

Very excited that one of my one-act plays has been selected for the 8th Annual Festival of Shorts by the Edmonds Driftwood Players outside of Seattle. Come see it July 7-9. Here’s where you can go for more information. As a real departure for me, it’s a comedy.

Playwrights will tell you that unless you’re the toast of New York theatre it’s very difficult to find places that will produce your play. I’ve been very lucky that both my last two plays and several one-acts have found full productions.

And here in Los Angeles it’s even harder because of the new Equity rules that jack up costs to where even modest productions are now prohibitive. Instead of TWELVE ANGRY MEN you can only do TWO ANGRY MEN.

Part of the overall problem is that theatres have “seasons.” So they’ll schedule maybe five or six productions a year. And one of them is always Christmas-themed and one is always LOVE LETTERS starring local news anchors. You submit your play and sometimes a year could go by before they respond. And in fairness to the theatres, I’m sure they all get inundated with material. I can only imagine some of the dreck these artistic directors have to wade through.

So playwrights must have patience. If they’re lucky enough to get a call from a theatre company saying they’re interested in their play I bet the initial reaction from more than half of them is “Oh. I submitted a play to you?” It had been so long they forgot. Submissions are like giving a note to Lassie and telling her to go across the Grand Canyon for help. “Hurry, Lassie!”

There are theatre websites that list various festivals and competitions and for fun I’ve entered a few. They each have different requirements (only plays about Nordic women cleaning fish with the word “lawnmower” in the title), deadlines, application restrictions. Some want you to produce it and stage it yourself, which begs the question: Then what do I need you for? And although my primary interest is in writing full-length plays, there are more opportunities for one-acts and the name of the game is getting your work on stage.

So I’m thrilled that my one-act LOVER’S LEAP will hit the boards in Seattle. I’ll go up for it, so if you’re in the theatre say hello and don’t blame me for the slow Mariners start.

NOW FOR THE BLOG EXPERIMENT

As mentioned, I have two full-length plays that both received great reactions and reviews. One is A OR B?, which is a two-character romantic comedy, and the other is GOING GOING GONE, a four-character comedy set in a baseball pressbox. I would love to get more productions of them. I have an agent who is sending them out, but as I wait the year for responses, I thought I’d take a more direct route.

YOU.

A OR B? received a fantastic production at the Hatboro Theatre outside of Philadelphia. And that came about through a reader of the blog who was involved with the theatre.

So here’s my experiment: If you’re a theatre company or own a theatre and you’re looking for a crowd-pleasing comedy, please get in touch. You can email me at bossjock@dslextreme.com. I’ll provide copies of the plays and press packets. (Let’s see if anyone takes me up on it.) Both plays are very funny, and let’s get real -- how many times can you do LOVE LETTERS? It’s gotten to the point where the weekend weather girl and local mattress store owner are starring in it.

About KEN LEVINE

Named one of the BEST 25 BLOGS by TIME Magazine. Ken Levine is an Emmy winning writer/director/producer/major league baseball announcer. In a career that has spanned over 30 years Ken has worked on MASH, CHEERS, FRASIER, THE SIMPSONS, WINGS, EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND, BECKER, DHARMA & GREG, and has co-created three series. He and his partner wrote the feature VOLUNTEERS. Ken has also been the radio/TV play-by-play voice of the Baltimore Orioles, Seattle Mariners, San Diego Padres. and Dodger Talk. He hosts the podcast HOLLYWOOD & LEVINE

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